The following story contains spoilers for The Pitt season 2, episode 9, “3:00 P.M.”
WE’RE NINE EPISODES into The Pitt‘s second season, and we’ve already run the gamut of medical mystery, drama, and intrigue. We’ve seen automobile accidents, flesh-eating viruses, tumors, blisters, gunshot wounds and even Hot Dog Eating Contest champions—if there’s something that could go wrong on a 4th of July weekend, The Pitt is showing us how an emergency room would handle it.
But, look—depiction of competent doctors isn’t all we come to The Pitt for. If that were the case, we’d just watch documentaries of real doctors doing the work. We do appreciate that The Pitt shows us all of that, and shows it with accuracy and respect. But we also come to The Pitt because these are characters we’ve now come to know, and they’re in situations we want to see play out. And if that comes at a risk of potentially crossing some lines in the workplace, well, its the characters who are going to have to deal with it, and not us.
Amidst all the real-time medical drama that The Pitt has thrown at viewers in season 2, the show’s writers have also managed to work in a couple character-driven subplots as well. First and foremost, we know the this entire day takes place on Dr. Robby’s (Noah Wyle) last day at work before he goes off on a three-month sabbatical. As viewers of season 1, we know all about Robby’s past battles with mental illness and depression, and many of his friends in the show seem to be equally concerned with him, including Dr. Abbot (Shawn Hatosy).
We’ve also seen through subtext that Robby is particularly pleased with and proud of now-officially-a-doctor Whitaker (Gerran Howell), although he recently learned some new information about his young protégé: He’s been spending a lot of time hanging around at the farm and home of the widow of one of the burn patients he cared for last year. We don’t know if Whitaker and the widow have anything romantic going on—and neither does Robby—but it’s enough that he feels the need to talk to the young doctor and make sure he keeps things on the straight and narrow.
But Robby really likes Whitaker, clearly. And so he also winds up asking him to house-sit for him, an offer Whitaker graciously accepts. And then Robby says if he doesn’t come back (????) that he could have a great bachelor pad on his hands. While we don’t like the sound of that, we did ultimately enjoy the scene and exchange between these two men.
But what is to make of a conversation like this? We’re wondering not only if Whitaker is crossing a line in his personal relationships, but if Robby himself is crossing a line by bringing Whitaker so intimately into his own personal life.
An ER Doctor Reacts to Dr. Robby and Dr. Whitaker’s conversation in season 2, episode 9 of The Pitt
Sometimes ER situations go beyond medical accuracy and decision-making, and get into a more ethical and social place, like this situation between Dr. Robby and Dr. Whitaker. For an experienced, expert take on the scene, we once again went to Dr. Robert Glatter, the Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, an experienced ER doctor, and a member of the MH Advisory Board to help us make some sense of it.
While the conversation between Dr. Robby and Dr. Whitaker begins with Robby asking Whitaker about his relationship with the burn victim’s wife, it quickly turns into Robby making an ask himself to Whitaker about his own home.
By asking Whitaker to house-sit in this case, he is violating an ethical code that exists surrounding social boundaries between residents and attendings. While his “ask” appears to be harmless and certainly an economic boon for Dr. Whitaker—since he can house-sit for 3 months without paying rent—it involves Dr. Robby getting in between an ongoing commitment Dr. Whitaker has to the widow of a burn victim he took care of in the ED.
“As a general rule, it would be highly unusual and inappropriate to have an ED attending get involved or in the middle of a delicate personal or living arrangement, which Dr. Robby has just learned about,” Dr. Glatter says. “Dr. Robby may ultimately believe (due to burnout or PTSD) that the opportunity to find a house sitter is straightforward and simple—and nothing more than it appears on the surface. However, it comes with deeper questions and layers, and is nuanced at best.”
He continues, suggesting that The Pitt‘s writers likely included this scene not only as a way to have Robby confront Whitaker as a mentor, but to also test the audience, and see how they’d react to Robby himself testing boundaries and bending ethical rules.
“By asking Whitaker to house-sit, in this case, he is violating an ethical code that exists surrounding social boundaries between residents and attendings,” he says. “While his “ask” appears to be harmless and certainly an economic boon for Dr. Whitaker—since he can house-sit for 3 months without paying rent—it involves Dr. Robby getting in between an ongoing commitment Dr. Whitaker has to the widow of a burn victim he took care of in the ED.”
Dr. Glatter posits that The Pitt puts forward a particularly ironic situation, where Dr. Robby is intending to emphasize that Whitaker respects ethical doctor-patient boundaries with the widow he’s helping on her farm, but in the process, he himself is crossing similar boundaries by inserting himself into the living situations of several of his residents, creating an ethical lapse due to the power imbalance between residents and attendings.
“While Dr. Robby may feel it’s natural to ask a person he trusts—as he casually approaches Dr. Whitaker in the break room—it effectively jeopardizes a working relationship that is sacred, and based on respect, hierarchy and power between attending physicians and residents,” he says.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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